Seventh Cross Evolution: Basic FAQ and walkthrough (US version)
version 1.1 (1/8/01)
By Jeff Coleburn (vsp@unix3.netaxs.com) and contributors
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(The usual required legalese applies: this document is Copyright 2001
Jeff Coleburn. You can copy it, print it out, put it on your site,
stick it up your wazoo or do whatever else seems natural, as long as
you don't publish it in a for-profit medium without contacting me first
and providing attribution. Of course, what kind of magazine would
be releasing a walkthrough guide for THIS game at this point, much less
want it so badly that they'd rip this one off without asking?)
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//TABLE OF CONTENTS//
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0.0 Version History
0.1 Contributors
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Description of the game
1.1.1 The good
1.1.2 The bad
1.1.3 The ugly
1.1.4 Personal notes
1.2 Controls & movement
1.3 Menus
1.4 Stone Monuments (saving and other functions)
2.0 Getting Started
2.1 Beginning stage - survival in the pond
2.2 Protist problems
2.3 The Origin creature
3.0 Evolution: Building the Better Beast
3.1 Basic combat; obtaining EVPs
3.1 Building statistics through body part generation
3.2 The Evolution command
3.3 Body parts and nutrients
3.4 Equipping created body parts
3.4.1 "Pure" creatures
3.5 Recovering lost body parts after dying
3.6 Statistic gains from body part creation
3.7 Determining optimum grid patterns for generating body parts
3.7.1 Legs
3.7.2 Arms
3.7.3 Bodies
3.7.4 Heads
3.8 ExPower Abilities
3.8.1 Offensive Abilities
3.8.2 Defensive Abilities
3.8.3 Registering an ExPower ability
4.0 First Stage - The Pond
4.1 Becoming the baddest crab-killin' SOB in the whole damned pond
4.2 Preparations for the cave
4.3 First Stage Area Boss - The Worm
5.0 Second Stage - The Sea
5.1 Sloping cavern
5.2 Larger sea cavern
5.3 Second Stage Area Boss - The Big Ray
6.0 Third Stage - The Jungle
6.1 Entrance area
6.2 Second jungle area
6.3 Third Stage Area Boss - Twin Frogs
7.0 Fourth Stage - The Badlands
7.1 Badlands Area 1
7.2 Badlands Area 2
7.3 Badlands Area 3
7.4 Fourth Stage Area Boss - Fire-Breathing Dinosaur
8.0 Fifth Stage - The Pastoral Valley
8.1 Valley Area 1
8.2 Valley Area 2
8.3 Valley Area 3
8.4 Fifth Stage Area Boss - Giant Mecha-Bird
9.0 Sixth Stage - Barren Future
9.1 Future Grassy Area
9.2 Future Desert Area
9.3 Deserted Valley
9.4 Sixth Stage Area Boss - Twin Golems
9.4.1 Storyline turning point
9.5 Sixth Stage Boss #2 - Neo Bionoid
10.0 Side Quest - Giant Butterfly
10.1 Side Quest - Giant Crustacean
11.0 The Hidden Cave
11.1 Plot exposition
11.2 Inside the laboratory
11.2.1 Ending set 1 (Creature path)
11.2.2 Ending set 2 (Human path)
12.0 Appendices and tables
12.1 Nutrient values of non-creature edibles
12.2 Catalog of creatures
12.3 (partial) Catalog of body parts
12.4 Frequently Asked Questions
13.0 Spoilers
13.1 Storyline spoilers
13.1.1 Ending set 1 (Creature endings)
13.1.2 Ending set 2 (Human ending)
13.2 Small hints on evolution/body part generation
13.3 Unanswered questions (or: help me out here)
13.4 Closing thoughts
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0.0 Version History
Version 1.0 (1/4/01): This is the first release of this document,
based on my experiences in finishing this game for the first time.
Some details (such as complete lists of nutrient values for corpses,
complete body part lists, etc.) remain and will be added as I have
time. This document is intended as a general walkthrough, and
submissions are welcome if I've missed anything particularly
interesting (which is quite possible) or if anything's inaccurate.
Version 1.1 (1/7/01): Added the second (human) ending, and how to
get it. More ending details. More body parts and stats listed.
Information about bonuses for "pure" creatures. Corrections and
clarifications. Camera details. More info being added, slowly but
surely...
0.1 Contributors
The following have been quite helpful in debugging and enhancing this
walkthrough:
* Kendrick Chua (kendrick@io.com), for general advice, tips on the
Human ending, and the concept of bonuses for pure creatures.
* Weasel Despair (wdespair@yahoo.com), for lots of info on the ending
branch structure and storyline.
* (your name here: just send me something!)
1.0 Introduction
Where to begin? Seventh Cross Evolution is one of those games that defies
easy description (and most attempts at FAQs).
1.1 Description of the game
The plot of the game is simple at its core. A new life is born in a pond
in some faraway place, in the form of a protist. A protist is a very
primitive organism without limbs or defenses of any kind, making its life
expectancy rather low without some guidance from you. Your creature's
task is simply to survive, growing and evolving with your aid from a
helpless blob to a fearsome predator that can conquer all that would
devour it.
You guide the creature's evolution through direct manipulation of its DNA,
in a rather complex system that simultaneously builds the creature's stats
and forms new body parts for it to use. Slowly but surely, you turn the
predators around you into your prey, modifying your body as needed to
bypass all obstacles and prove yourself fittest to survive.
1.1.1 The good
Some positive things about this game:
* It's certainly a unique title in the Dreamcast library, in that there's
not anything else quite like it out there.
* Once you get the hang of the evolution system, tinkering with DNA grids
and figuring out how to obtain needed body parts can be an entertaining
little puzzle.
* With the variety of parts available (30 different heads, arms, legs and
bodies that can be mixed & matched as needed, ranging from primitive
organisms to man to futuristic/fantasy designs), you can tailor your
creature to whatever its specific needs (or your whims) dictate.
* The graphics are pretty, if not groundbreaking.
* A well-hidden plotline. You begin with the mere task of survival, and
have no other purpose or goal than that for a long, long time. After a
while, you get occasional FMV clips of mysterious events, but other than
that, you're on your own until near the very end of the game. Life comes
with no instruction manuals. For all intents and purposes, neither does
this game. Working out how the world works can give you a nice sense of
discovery...
1.1.2 The bad
Some negatives:
* The manual is intentionally vague, to the point of being annoying.
There are a TON of things you will discover by trial-and-error, and only
those who pay attention to detail (or read this FAQ, perhaps) will succeed
in a reasonable amount of time.
* The combat system is aggravating at best. You flail away at opponents
or zap them with distance attacks, they do it to you, somebody falls over.
It grows extremely one-dimensional over time.
* Likewise, there are no clues at all as to what new enemies are like,
what they can do, how hard they hit, what effects their attacks will have,
or even what their names are. Not that you can go out in the woods and
find animals wearing nametags and HP meters in real life, mind you, but
this IS a game.
* There's not a lot of variety to gameplay. You kill, you eat, you repeat.
The enemies aren't particularly distinctive -- more like generic piles of
HPs and attacks in differing shapes, and the bosses are (for the most part)
just bigger piles. You travel to a few different areas, but the terrain is
generic at best almost everywhere.
* There are two extremely powerful side-quest bosses. The bad part is that
it's extremely easy to stumble into either one of them, or mistake them
for the "actual" end-of-level boss and thus get extremely frustrated from
one-hit kills.
1.1.3 The ugly
Some things that'll make you cringe:
* This game SCREAMS out "first-generation console game." There is slowdown
when multiple enemies approach in the water -- and sometimes when ONE enemy
approaches, if you're in polygon-heavy terrain. This can be a useful
early-warning system for you, in a way -- if the screen starts shuddering,
start looking for what's gaining on you -- but it's still annoying.
* The savefile is a whopping 170 blocks. That's almost a whole card for
one game! From NFL2K, I expect this. From a simple explore-and-beat-on-
things game, I don't... especially when the areas reset when reentered.
It's not as if the game's keeping track of an entire world (ala Diablo)
in its savefile...
* Again, there is no score, no ranking, no communication with anyone else,
and no easily-decipherable way of knowing how well you're doing, other than
the sense of accomplishment when Boss X falls over dead and a new area is
unlocked. This is both good and bad, depending on your outlook.
* The manual states that "there is no point at which the game is over."
Without giving away too much this early, they are LYING TO YOU. LYING
LYING LYING. While you can die a thousand deaths and not run out of lives,
and thus cannot _lose_ the game... there are a handful of final "winning"
endings. If you last that long looking for them, that is.
1.1.4 Personal notes
Still here? Good. If all of that didn't scare you off, you may be the
rare type of gamer who appreciates games with odd perspectives and
storylines, who doesn't mind long stretches of gameplay and trial-and-error
without obvious gains or rewards, and who enjoys having to figure out
what's going on without having a walkthrough in your lap. Then again,
you're reading this, so perhaps walkthroughs have their benefits after all.
Did you have the patience for Elite, back when your C64 or Apple II was
hot stuff? Ever hack Monster Rancher games in a major way, doping out
what the optimum raising methods were? Can you play games that are
extremely repetitive, that others may call dull? You'll be at home here.
Those looking for fast-paced action should go get Crazy Taxi instead --
and that's not putting down Crazy Taxi one bit, either. This is simply a
different breed of cat altogether.
Seventh Cross Evolution is a Dreamcast game whose concept intrigued
me from the first time I heard about it, but whose price tag and middling
reviews scared me off for a long while. At long last, it turned up at
$9.99 in a Boscov's clearance rack (who'd have ever thought that Boscov's
would ever have a gaming bargain?) and I took the plunge. While the other
$9.99 special I took a chance on (Soul Fighter) was a steaming heap of
dung, Seventh Cross Evolution has a certain charm to it, and will reward
those who have the patience to sit through its tedious aspects. This is
a classic love it/hate it experience; there is no middle ground here.
To give this some further perspective, I _hated_ the original Resident
Evil. I saw some good points about it, but thought "Hey, that's a nice
graphic engine for its time. I wish they'd put an actual GAME in with
it." In a way, this is a similar case -- it's obviously a good starting
point for a game, an excellent concept, but it's also visibly flawed and
incomplete in many ways. And yet I found myself drawn to this game
despite its flaws, because the concept _is_ that interesting in and of
itself. A lot of people also felt that way; a lot more saw the flaws and
immediately traded it in for store credit. Your mileage may vary.
I went looking for a FAQ to compensate for the intentionally vague manual,
found NOTHING online, and started writing so that the next poor sod who
picks this title up doesn't spend three hours getting kacked by crabs and
throw the game through their third-floor window in utter disgust.
(Personally, though, I did start some serious crab-killin' at about the
twenty-minute mark. I'm a fast learner sometimes.)
1.2 Controls & movement
Movement is very simple: forward and back on the D-Pad to walk, left and
right to rotate in place, diagonals to walk while turning. One drawback
of this is that you can't walk sideways (strafe-walk, for Quake players),
so if you're in a tight place you may end up doing funky three-point turns
to get out, which is no fun when there's a crab about to rip your legs off.
Your creature does move and turn smoothly, at least.
There are six types of terrain: Plain, Sea, Swamp, Float, Ford, Slope.
Generally speaking, your ability to travel on each depends on your leg
type. The basic (Origin) leg type can handle Fords (shallow water) and
that's about all. Crab legs can walk (albeit somewhat slowly and noisily)
over land and along sea floors. Fish fins work great in water but can't
go over land. The higher level ones can do just about anything, but come
at a high cost in nutrients. Movement speed is dependent on your leg
and body types.
A good rule of thumb throughout the game is to keep moving and KEEP TURNING
at all times -- you can sometimes hear monsters coming from behind you,
but the racket you make when moving (water splashing, legs clicking,
etc.) often drowns that out. If you're standing still and hear noises,
something's coming after you, so turn and find it quickly before you start
taking hits.
The A button is for hand-to-hand attacks when enemies are close enough.
(When an enemy is within a reasonable distance, "lock on" brackets will
surround it. The arrow indicates how close the enemy is; green is within
ExPower attack range, yellow is within range of certain projectile weapons,
red is within hand-to-hand range.) If you see a red arrow, press A to
whomp your enemy.
The B button calls up the menu, whenever possible.
The X button activates a (natural) projectile weapon, if you have one
equipped. (Only certain Arm types have these; there are no objects or
weapons that can be picked up and used in Seventh Cross Evolution.)
The Y button activates your currently registered ExPower ability, if you
have one registered.
The Start button pauses your game.
L and R shift your attention from one creature to another when more than
one is within combat range.
The analog joypad is not used.
1.3 Menus
The Start menu is very simple: New Game, Continue Game (which calls up
the memory-card manager screen, from which you can load and save multiple
games), and Options, which lets you select Mono or Stereo sound and select
desired camera angles.
Within the game, you can call up a menu at almost any time via the B button.
The menu contains the following options:
1.3.1 ExPower
This option allows you to view the special abilities your creature is
capable of using (see section 4.3, ExPower attacks), and register one
as your default special ability.
1.3.2 Mutations
This option allows you to equip body parts you have generated
(see section 3.0, Evolution), provided that you have sufficient
nutrients to complete the process.
1.3.3 Status
This screen gives you a one-page overview of your creature's stats,
available ExPowers and similar updates.
1.3.4 Options Menu
You may select Mono or Stereo sound here, and select which type of
camera you want to use for moving, melee combat and missile combat.
For movement, the cameras represent different angles from which to
view your character. (All are behind-the-head cameras and are
reasonably similar.)
The Melee and Missile cameras have seven options each:
Melee A: Rotating, close-in Missile A: Isometric (left)
Melee B: Isometric overhead (left) Missile B: Isometric (right)
Melee C: Isometric (right) Missile C: Overhead, steady
Melee D: Overhead, steady Missile D: Rotating, overhead
Melee E: Rotating, overhead Missile E: Extreme close-up
Melee F: Extreme close-up Missile F: Overhead
Melee Random: any of the above Missile Random: any of the above
I recommend any of the rotating or overhead cameras, just because
they'll give you a good view of what else is around you. In a game
where creatures can sneak up on you easily, this is a big benefit.
1.4 Stone Monoliths (saving and other functions)
At various points in the game (like at the very beginning, for example),
you will encounter large stone monoliths. The first one is reddish-orange;
later ones vary in color. These have several functions:
SAVE lets you save your game in progress. Note that you have a whopping
170+ save block requirement -- this game really needs its own memory card.
You probably don't need an LCD-screen VMU, however; a generic will do,
since about the only thing the VMU screen does during gameplay is keep
a running tally of your EVPs.
EVOLUTION lets you tinker with your own DNA, if you have earned enough
EVPs through killing other creatures. This will be dealt with in-depth
in a later section.
TELEPORT becomes available at later monoliths once you've defeated
a "boss" creature. Again, this will be dealt with when it's available.
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2.0 Getting Started
The first thing you will be presented with is a set of floating slabs,
each representing one statistic (attack power, e-attack power,
defense, intelligence, healing and dexterity). You will be asked to
assign a color to each slab. These colors will be associated with the
stats you assign them to throughout the game.
ATTACK power represents your fighting ability. There are two blocks
for this on the Status screen, one of which will usually be empty. The
top one is for hand-to-hand combat (available when an enemy has a red
arrow in its lock-on grid), while the bottom one is for projectile weapons
built into your Arms (available when you see a yellow arrow). Different
Arm types may change your attack forms, but in general you get one or
the other, not both.
E-ATTACK power represents your skill with ExPower abilities. These
offensive abilities are roughly akin to elemental magic, and do more
damage as this stat increases.
DEFENSE measures your resistance to injury. This is an important stat
to increase, as you're very vulnerable to attacks (read as: crab claws)
at the beginning of the game.
INTELLIGENCE measures your learning ability. Higher intelligence leads
to a wider variety of ExPower abilities (you don't need to learn them by
any method, they just pop right into your head, and disappear if your
intelligence drops later on).
HEALING represents your recovery rate from injury, along with how quickly
you will recover spent EPs (used by ExPower abilities).
DEXTERITY represents... well, I'll just say that I haven't found Dex to
affect gameplay much (if at all). If there's something I'm missing
here, please let me know.
(It is uncertain for now whether certain colors affect your starting
stats, or whether some colors are more prone to stat increases later on
than others. For now, I'm assuming that it's just a color preference, but
more research is called for. The starting numbers always seem to be
identical so far.)
A flurry of DNA construction occurs, and before you know it, you appear...
2.1 Beginning stage - survival in the pond
As previously stated, you begin life as a protist, floating around in
a tranquil little pond. It's tranquil until the crabs get hungry, that is.
Your task is to bypass the usual centuries-long process of evolution and
bulk up in a hurry, growing from a little floating blob into something
that can take out anything in the pond on its own terms.
The pond is full of rocks, coral and other stationary objects that must
be maneuvered around, as well as various shallow and deep pockets.
There is a beach area surrounding it and a couple of little islands,
which you can't climb onto (yet). Be aware of the rocks and watch out
for places that LOOK like they're passable, but aren't. It's quite easy
to get stuck in a tight place and get eaten before you realize you
can't get through.
2.2 Protist problems
This stage is very simple -- keep eating and you'll grow, get eaten and
you start over. The tricky bit, for some, is to figure out what's
edible.
For all intents and purposes, treat anything that's moving as a danger.
This means you're stuck with the local plant life. You will find what
look like small strands of seaweed floating around, as well as small
green microorganisms that look sort of like floating eyes. Swim into
these repeatedly, and keep moving -- a stationary protist will be some
crab's lunch in short order. I recommend taking laps of the section of
the pond you can access, not stopping for anything (lest something catch
you from behind), and steering into anything that even looks like food.
As you eat, you will grow in size; first to a slug-like organism, then to
one a little bigger than that. (It may take more than one snack to grow.)
The third time you grow will provide you with your first working sets of
limbs; this new body is known as the Origin creature.
(This may seem like an overly brief summary of the protist stage, but it
CAN be blasted through in two minutes or less. If you are eaten, you
revert to the smallest protist size and start again, but it's really
not at all difficult to finish this once you know what to look for.)
2.3 The Origin creature
From here, the real fun begins. Your creature now has a functional head,
arms and legs, and can swat small creatures in its path. Note that
"small creatures" does not equal "crabs" yet, as they can kill you with
one well-aimed claw swipe. And they will, if they get near you.
Repeatedly. On the plus side, dying at this point does NOT penalize you
in any appreciable way, as you have no mutations yet to lose and rebuild.
Go to the menu and select MUTATIONS to view your Origin in all its glory.
Notice that the Head, Body, Arm and Leg parts are all "1 - Origin." This
is the most primitive state you will exist at from this point forward, and
is the state you will reassume when you're killed. Obviously, it would
be a good thing to move up the evolutionary chain and get some more
capable body parts. You need EVPs (Evolution Value Points, I guess) to
do this. See where it says "EVP 0/2" at the top right of the screen?
This means you don't have any yet, and you need two or more to start
tinkering with your DNA. (You can collect far more than the minimum
requirement, two in this case. As you evolve repeatedly, the requirement
will increase.)
Once you've exited the menus, your task is to go forth and find things
that are moving but look harmless. Small and brown are your watchwords
here -- some look sort of like pitcher-plants or sea cucumbers, some
more like crawling four-armed slugs, but both of these are helpless before
the wrath of your mighty arm-stubs. Smack them and watch them suffer.
With each creature you slay, you earn EVPs. For small fry like you're
hunting now, you'll get one apiece. Crabs are worth two. If you are killed,
you keep your EVPs and return to the starting monolith, so don't fear the
crabs TOO much (it's inconvenient and annoying, but not truly detrimental
yet). Build up some EVPs, head for the monolith, and select EVOLUTION -- and,
with any luck, become a little more prepared against the crabs.
(You only need two EVPs at the beginning of the game to build a new part,
so you can either make a beeline for the monolith after every two kills
or build up some points and do several at once. Given the stat boosts from
part generation, I recommend going for new parts ASAP.)
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3.0 Evolution - Building the Better Beast The Charles
Atlas^H^H^H^H^HDarwin Way in Twelve Short Days!
This is the most intricate part of the game, and certainly the most
frustrating. The manual is very little help (and intentionally so) --
you're on your own when it comes to solving the evolutionary puzzle.
On the other hand, that's what we're here for.
3.1 Basic combat; obtaining EVPs
The combat system is painfully simple in Seventh Cross Evolution --
when you get close, you whack them with the A button, and they whack back
until one of you dies. (It is possible to retreat if you're not actively
attacking, or if a creature surprises you from behind, but they'll
certainly get a shot or two in first.) Some opponents can zap you from
afar, but you won't encounter them for a while yet. You also can get
distance weapons of your own in the form of ExPowers, but they'll be
covered later on.
DO NOT BUTTON-MASH unless you're dead sure of what you're doing, or you'll
be dead, period. The game seems to buffer your button presses during combat,
so if you've pressed A a dozen times trying to get the jump on an enemy
and suddenly realize "Hey, that last hit hurt, I'd better use a Heal
ability," you're out of luck, because it won't let you do anything until
your next eleven attacks all register. By that time, either you or
it (likely you, if you needed to Heal that badly) will be toast. (If you
hit the B button for the Menu JUST AS you're hit by an attack, it seems to
break the logjam.)
Monsters that attack you do damage, naturally. Certain monster types
can also poison you, which (unlike typical RPG poisons) neither kills
you outright nor makes your health drain away. Instead, it acts as a
temporary freeze on healing; your natural healing ability stops working,
and ExPower Heal abilities won't function either. The simplest cure for
Poison is time; eventually, it'll wear off, but it can be dangerous if
you're being attacked steadily and need a Healing ability badly.
Toxin works similarly, but affects both your HPs and EPs.
An ExPower ability called Purification knocks out poisons and toxins,
but it's an out-of-combat ability at best -- if you're trading hits
with an enemy that poisons, you won't have time to act after Purification
before you're repoisoned by another hit.
At any rate, when you defeat an enemy, you obtain EVPs. A running tally
of these points appears on your VMU, if you're not using a cheapo memory
card without an LCD screen. (It's also visible when you select Evolution
from a monolith.)
3.2 The EVOLUTION command
When you select EVOLUTION from a monolith, you are presented with a
10x10 grid to draw in and six colors to choose from. Not surprisingly,
these are the same six colors you assigned before your protist was born,
and correspond to the same stats.
Your task is to draw whatever designs seem appropriate, then to click
"Send" to send your creation to your DNA structure. If you have enough
EVPs for the operation, the end result will be a new body part of some
sort (head, body, arms or legs), which can be equipped later on to make
your creature more formidable in some way.
The number of EVPs required is listed at the upper right of this screen,
in an X/Y format. X is the number of EVPs you have; Y is the number
required for a DNA submission. As you create more and more body parts,
the number of EVPs required will slowly and steadily increase, but so
will the quality of the parts that you generate.
The game uses its own algorithms to determine what type of body part is
created, and what level that body part will be at. (For example,
"Leg 3" is a typical creation, the legs of a Blade Crab. The Origin state
contains Head 1, Leg 1, Arm 1 and Body 1, so anything else can likely be
viewed as an upgrade.) The parts get more complex (and require more
nutrients to equip) as the numbers go up, and the statistic gains from
generating body parts also increase with higher-level parts.
Imagine that the game has a "perfect" design in mind for Level 30 parts,
and that the closer you get to that design, the better your parts will be.
By modifying your design slightly, you can often shift the level upwards
or downwards as needed. On the other hand, sometimes you can go from a
Leg 27 to a Head 2 with one extra dot... Your success also depends
heavily on your maturity level, so to speak -- don't expect anything in
double-digits right off the bat, and the same design that gives you
a Level 10 part in your first handful of attempts may give you a Level
25+ part once you've generated a few dozen parts. Practice makes perfect,
and even your "failures" (generating parts you already had) raise your
statistics in the process. EVPs are easy to come by, so keep trying.
3.3 Body parts and nutrients
When you slay enemies, their corpses are left behind. Move over these to
eat them, along with anything else that isn't nailed down on the map.
(There are occasional items that may prove poisonous, but the poison is
of a similar nature to combat poisons, i.e. it won't kill you.)
With every part you eat, you gain nutrients of various types.
Common nutrients:
WA = Water PROT = Protein CA = Calcium FI = Fiber
These nutrients are found in nearly every corpse in varying amounts.
Some enemies are richer in one area than others, and many have only
one nutrient that they supplement. Keep a balanced diet to keep everything
high; you'll need them later.
Rare nutrients:
HC = Hard Cell NB = Neuro-Bio
These nutrients are extremely hard to come by for quite some time.
Naturally, they're needed when equipping most of the more powerful
body parts. By the time you'll need these, they'll start turning up,
but don't expect to find them until you've offed a handful of bosses.
When you equip new body parts, you use up nutrients. Each body part
will have a list of what nutrients it requires on the MUTATIONS screen,
and more powerful body parts require more nutrients to be used.
Keep in mind that when your body is healing (recovering lost HPs or EPs),
you are using up nutrients in the process. Healing HPs uses Protein
(and Water), and recovering EPs uses Fiber (and Calcium). Therefore, if
you're fighting a lot and eating tons of corpses but your nutrients keep
going down, the game's not broken, it's supposed to happen that way...
you only gain nutrients when you're not exerting yourself to the max
in the process.
3.4 Equipping created body parts
Once you've created some body parts that look useful, you'll need to
equip them onto your spindly little body. Go to the menu and select
MUTATIONS to do so.
Select a body section to change (Head, Arm, Body, Leg) to view a list of
available parts. Highlighting a body part will list its nutrient
requirements; your available nutrients are in the boxes at the top of
this screen. More advanced parts require more nutrients (and more
advanced nutrients in many cases) than others.
Highlighting a body part will also show its effects on your statistics
in the upper left. Take a careful look at its effects, as some body
parts have both beneficial and detrimental effects. Parts may raise
one stat and lower others, may change your attack values dramatically,
or even change your form of attack.
(For example, in the upper left of this screen, you'll notice two entries
for attack power; one with your hand-to-hand strength, one blank beneath
it. The reason for this is because the second entry is for your X-button
attack power, i.e. for built-in projectile weapons that don't use EPs.
Some arms have projectile attacks, some don't -- but most have only
one or the other. Don't get caught pounding the wrong button while a
crab's clawing your legs off, because you didn't realize your newly-
equipped Sea Worm arms have projectiles instead of bludgeoning power.)
You will notice right away that any high-level body parts you have created
will be difficult or impossible to use yet. This is intentional. Ever
played an RPG where you could use Excalibur, Slayer of All Evil from
the beginning instead of being stuck with a dagger, cloth armor and
a sack of rice as starting equipment? Not too likely. All will become
available with patience, diligence and mind-numbing repetition of effort.
If you have sufficient nutrients to swap body parts, you will see your
new part replace the old on your pictured creature. Congratulations,
you've upgraded your body and become a more dangerous opponent. Good luck
trying to stay that way...
3.4.1 "Pure" creatures
If you equip all four parts for one creature, you may find some
secret abilities that would otherwise be unavailable. For example, pure
Metal creatures get a free projectile weapon; pure Evil Wises fire four
energy bolts instead of one (though the difference in damage doesn't seem
that different). Get all four Man parts and... well, let's just say the
ending you get largely depends on whether you get these parts or not by
a certain point in the game.
3.5 Recovering lost body parts after dying
Sooner or later, you're going to get whacked. Probably quite often.
When you do, you wake up next to the initial monolith, back in the
Origin stage of development. Once you stop screaming, you can relax a bit,
as all the body parts you were wearing are not lost permanently.
The problem is that the nutrients you used to create them _are_ lost.
These are easily recouped by chomping down on the local denizens.
Something to keep in mind, however, is that healing HPs uses up
Protein and Water and recovering EPs uses up Fiber and Calcium. Therefore,
going into dangerous areas makes nutrient-building nearly impossible;
either you'll be blasting enemies with ExPowers from a safe distance
(using EPs, thus using up Fiber) or you'll be taking damage in
hand-to-hand combat (using HPs, thus using up Protein). Stick to
areas where you can beat on creatures hand-to-hand and inflict one-hit
kills regularly, thus building up all your nutrient pools. HardCell and
NeuroBio are hard enough to come by that you can worry about them later.
If you have sufficient nutrients, you can go straight to the MUTATIONS
screen and put your lost body parts back on. If you don't, start
whacking creatures until your nutrient count is high enough.
3.6 Statistic gains from body part creation
The color of your design is largely irrelevant when it comes to what
TYPE of body part is generated; you can draw the same design in as many
colors as you like and it will generally create the same part. Where the
colors are important is that evolving body parts increases your stats,
_even if you're creating a body part you already have_.
Each statistic is related to the color you assigned to it in the beginning
of the game. Whenever you submit DNA containing a stat's color, that stat
will gain points based on the level of the body part created and what
percentage of your design is of that color. (If you draw designs in
multiple colors, the stat gains will be divided between the stat-colors
you use. If you stick to mainly monochrome designs, the gains will be
focused on that one stat. The choice is yours.)
If you are drawing in one color, the stat gain will generally be one-half
(rounded down) of the level of the generated part. Gains for multicolor
designs may vary.
These stat bonuses take place even if you cannot currently use the body
part you've generated -- a newborn Origin can't possibly have enough
of the advanced nutrients to use a Metal Head, for example, but the
creature gets the big stat boost from evolving it anyway.
There are two things that help keep you from abusing this too dramatically,
however:
* If you keep sending identical grids to your DNA, the effect will lessen
and the body part generated won't be as nice. (You DO keep the previously
generated part, mind you -- you'll just be generating Arm 7s instead of
Arm 15s in subsequent attempts, for example, and the stat gains will
drop accordingly.)
If you modify the color of a design but leave it otherwise unchanged and
resubmit it, the degradation appears to slow down (if not stop entirely).
Thus, if you get a real prize-winner of a body part, you can submit it
in every color if you choose to get large all-around stat gains. Then
modify it slightly and do it again... and again... and so on, building
stats steadily even if you probably can't use the generated parts yet.
Resubmitting an identical design (in color and shape) is the real
quality-killer.
* After a certain number of evolutionary attempts, the number of EVPs
required goes up. The first jump is from two to five, then to ten, and
so on. You know how RPGs let you beat on easy creatures in the beginning
to gain levels, but then raise the experience required so that you have to
find and defeat bigger foes to advance? This is the Seventh Cross
version of that. One does not become a badass via crab-bashing alone.
3.7 Determining optimum grid patterns for generating body parts
Selecting colors for desired stat-gains is relatively straightforward.
Figuring out what kinds of body parts you will obtain, on the other hand,
is the most complicated and obscure part of Seventh Cross Evolution. If
you're looking for a complete explanation, good luck, because there are a
lot of rules still waiting to be discovered and/or thoroughly explained.
The same designs can return different results at different times.
In general, your first few attempts won't generate much of anything.
The manual hints that the part-creating process is an artificial life
algorithm that "learns" -- in other words, it'll be dumb as a doorstop
at first. Draw anything that comes to mind and build whatever stats seem
appropriate at first (again, I recommend defense and attack power); if you
get something useful, so much the better, but no part-generation is a
total failure (since you'll be building stats).
Try all sorts of designs -- you might be surprised at what you find.
Geometric shapes, mirror-images, symmetrical designs, little random
u-shapes here and there, random dots, large blobs, your initials,
photo-negative designs (full grids with dots missing to form patterns),
you name it... and there is a surprising simplicity to the top-level
part designs, if you can find it. (Some hints follow in the Spoiler
section at the end of this document.)
Your initial aim is to build some arms and legs that your undernourished
Origin creature can use -- better legs to give you some much-needed
mobility, and better arms to let you beat on the crabs that will be
slicing your Origin up repeatedly. Once you can kill the crabs, beetles
and other predators in the pond instead of being killed by them, your
REAL growth period begins. As frustrating as the initial randomness of
parts can be, new parts are cheap at first, so keep trying. Throw a
handful of random dots around the grid, see what they generate, then
try something different. Trying to get too complicated at first
leads to frustration (and to not being able to get out of the damn
pond for a while, because you can't find any decent legs. Keep in
mind, though, that you can finish the Pond AND the next area without
once setting foot on dry land, so fins (or other legs with Sea movement)
will do nicely).
If a design creates something that's ALMOST useful (say, a leg that's
too powerful for you to use right now, or one that's underpowered for
your liking), try modifying it just a little bit and resending it.
Add some dots, remove some dots, connect the dots, whatever it takes.
If you seem to be creating nothing but low-level parts, remember that
(a) that's supposed to happen, since you're just starting out at this,
and that (b) you NEED low-level parts in the early stages, because you
don't get many nutrients from scarfing down sea cucumbers.
The idea behind all of this is that there are "ideal" designs for each
body part type. Through trial, error and repetition, you will be working
towards these designs by figuring out which of your creations are
closer to them (and thus get better ratings). Sounds complicated? It is.
And still a bit random. Again, don't expect good results for quite some
time, but even mediocre results will get you started. After a while, you
may start generating 25-30s even when you're not trying for them
specifically.
3.7.1 Legs
Various types of legs will provide you with different movement types,
and also propel you at varying speeds. A fish-tail, for example, will
be swifter in the water but won't get you onto dry land. Crab legs
can reach lots of places but are slow and unwieldy. Different types
will be useful at different points in the game.
For reference, I obtained Leg 3 (Blade Crab, a beginner's set of legs
providing several movement choices) by scattering some small u-shapes
around the grid. Your mileage may vary.
3.7.2 Arms
The primary purpose of arms (at least at first) is to bludgeon enemies.
Thus, you'll want arms that have some striking power. Arm 3 (High Fish)
is a decent starting point for fledgling Origins. Arm 4 (Sea Worm)
gives you a projectile weapon instead of hand-to-hand fighting, which can
be very useful.
3.7.3 Bodies
Bodies tend to affect defense and healing, most increasing both.
Exceptionally dense bodies may limit movement speed due to the extra
weight.
3.7.4 Heads
Get a better head on your shoulders and a whole new world opens up --
ExPower attacks. These are the "magic" of Seventh Cross Evolution, and
will quickly become very powerful weapons.
Better heads generally grant higher levels of intelligence, which open
up ExPower attack forms and increase your EPs (which are necessary to
use them). The higher your INT, the more attack forms you will have
available to you. Of course, some heads serve different purposes...
some may increase your combat ability but be much less intelligent than
others. As always, you will tailor your part choices to your current
needs. Heads can also boost your E-Attack strength (damage done by
magic) and/or your Dexterity.
3.8 ExPower Abilities
As you may have noticed by now, attacking hand-to-hand works nicely on
smaller creatures, but there are lots of things in the world bigger
than you. This is where attacking from a distance can come in handy...
not to mention healing. The ExPower abilities (accessed via the
ExPower command on the B-button menu) allow you do to a whole lot more
than just bludgeon your enemies.
Which abilities are available to you depends entirely on your Intelligence
level. The higher it is, the more abilities (and more powerful versions
of abilities) become active. If your Intelligence drops (say, if you
swap out an intelligent head for a dumber-but-tougher one), the ability
gains will vanish as well. To use an available ExPower ability, select
it from the menu and hit the A button.
3.8.1 Offensive Abilities
The attack forms available to you depend on your Intelligence level.
Most of these are based on the elements, as is the general rule with RPGs.
(All INT-required numbers here are approximate, as I'm still experimenting.)
ATTACK COST IN EPs INT REQUIRED
-------------------------------------------
Fire 1st 5 ~20
Fire 2nd 60
Fire 3rd 100
Fire Max 150 (increasingly harsh firebolts)
Water 1st 8 ~20
Water 2nd 30 ~35
Water 3rd 75
Water Max 110 (cold and ice -- with an area effect!)
Poison 10
Toxin 20 (poison attacks)
(Note: Both Poison and Toxin affect YOU. Whether they do anything to
the enemy or not is open to debate, but I haven't killed anything with
them yet. What's the point? Beats me.)
Lightning 1st 12 ~35
Lightning 2nd 50 ~80
Lightning 3rd 100
Lightning Max 120 (electrical zaps)
Wind 1st 3 ~20
Wind 2nd 45
Wind 3rd 85
Wind Max 180 (whoosh!)
Death Curse 50 (about what it sounds like)
Death Curses 150 (ditto)
Keep in mind some environmental restrictions on attacks -- for example,
Fire attacks aren't possible under water. Lightning 1st is recommended
at first, as it conducts nicely in water and is pretty economical for
the punch it packs.
ExPowers are usable from a distance, i.e. as soon as a lock-on indicator
appears with a green arrow. (A red arrow is required for hand-to-hand
attacks, and a yellow arrow indicates any arm-based projectiles are in
range.)
3.8.2 Defensive Abilities
There are a few non-offensive powers that help, as well:
POWER COST IN EPs INT REQUIRED
------------------------------------------------
Low Heal 2 start with this (cures some minor damage)
Heal 10 ~50 (cures a lot more damage)
High Heal 40 (cures a load of damage)
Full Heal 150 (cures all damage)
(NOTE: no Heals can be used when poisoned)
Purification 15 ~20 (cures poison/toxin)
Teleport 5 ~20 (warps you to the 1st monument)
Force Shield 100 (rapidly depleting shield,
stops some incoming damage)
Suicidal Explosion 300 (If you're dumb enough to try
this, I'm not going to stop you.
I suppose as a last-gasp
attack vs. a Boss it might
have a use, but who'd have 300
EPs left by that point?)
3.8.3 Registering an ExPower ability
When you select ExPower from the menu, you can view pages of available
powers. Select your favorite with the Y button to highlight it.
This power will be activated whenever you hit the Y button in combat
(or any time, in the case of defensive powers). You can use a power
without registering it, of course, by selecting it with the A button
instead of with the Y button. Only one power can be registered to the
Y button (hence not needing the menu to be activated) at a time.
//////////
4.0 First Stage - The Pond
By now, you're probably getting a little bit bored with the Pond.
There are new areas to explore, once you've built yourself up to a point
where you can deal with what's between you and them...
Enemies:
Sea Cucumber (harmless), Slug (harmless), Squid (harmless), Beetle
(moderate danger), Crab (as I'm sure you've found, a royal pain at first)
4.1 Becoming the baddest crab-killin' SOB in the whole damn pond
The first half-hour of Seventh Cross Evolution can be a very painful
experience, particularly if you don't "get" the Evolution process.
The preceding sections have (presumably) helped in that regard.
Once you've made several laps of the pond, built up your EVPs by whacking
helpless sea cucumbers and evolved some new parts, you may be ready for
some revenge.
It really doesn't matter _what_ parts you generate, as making them in
the right colors will let you beat the crabs in any of a number of ways.
For example, building up Intelligence and E-Attack will let you blast
crabs off the map with Fire 1st (as long as you're not completely
underwater). Building up Attack will let even your feeble arm-stubs
kill crabs eventually. Building up Defense will give you the needed
HPs to survive crab hits while you're doing all that.
Let the parts you generate dictate which stats you build in this early
stage. If you get a Head you can use that increases Intelligence and/or
E-Attack, focus on those two stats and use your ExPowers against the
crabs. If you get Arms with good power, concentrate on building up Attack.
If you get Legs with Sea mobility, by all means use them -- they'll help
you run away from the crabs and get some breathing room, then turn around
and let 'em have it. A decent Body will give you the HPs you need to trade
hits and survive, letting you take your time building the other stats.
A set of Arms with a projectile attack (say, Lvl 4 Sea Worm) will let you
crank up your Defense and attack without using EPs. It's better at first
to excel in one or two areas than to be well-rounded; you can easily fill
in the gaps later on in your development.
This is a matter of attrition, not of battle skill. By building stats,
you will reach a level where you can kill crabs in one shot and survive
a hit from them if they should strike first. There's no big red light
that flashes when you're ready; you just have to know when it's time.
And when it is, go out and beat the living hell out of every crab you
can find. They're yummy, they crunch nicely, they give you protein for
body parts, and it's cathartic fun. Enjoy the crustacean carnage until
you've satisfied your lust for revenge. You'll need to stay in the
Pond for a while anyway, building up body parts (and stats) by generating
parts with your hard-earned EVPs.
4.2 Preparations for the cave
You may have noticed a large opening at the far end of the Pond area,
and perhaps have ventured into it at least once. If you did, you got
your head handed to you in a small paper bag unless you ran quickly,
because that's where the area boss hangs out. Suffice it to say that
you'll want to be well prepared before you tangle with him (AND have a
pretty good defense), and that a Head upgrade will come in handy,
because ExPower attacks are your keys to success for the near future.
4.3 First Stage Area Boss - The Worm
When you think you're ready, register your favorite distance-zap
(Lightning 1st works pretty well if you've boosted your E-Attack stat
a little) and head for the cave at the far end of the Pond. You'll
know you're there when you get a "Now Loading" screen and the music
gets more intense.
Before you lies a very ugly creature, which looks like a giant worm
of some sort. It'll come straight at you like a freight train, and
hits very hard. This is why you just read about ExPower attacks --
you want to hit this thing from a DISTANCE. Do so. Fry it with
Lightning 1st as fast as it'll let you. (Having built up Intelligence
and E-Attack is a prerequisite to this, of course, but this is the
easiest way to win this fight.)
Of course, it has a distance attack that can sting a bit... but it's not
nearly as fearsome as its bite. If you're well-prepared, you can trade
shots (preferably getting in the first one) until it falls.
I dropped it with three Lightning 1st blasts, taking some damage from its
zaps along the way. Keep in mind that if it gets close enough to take
a bite, you're likely dead. You may get some mileage out of trying to
dodge/back away while you're pounding the Y button -- just don't back
out of the cave in the process, or you'll have to reenter and try again.
Kill it, and the center monolith (the one with a fossilized fish on it)
turns blue. This monolith has the same Evolution and Save options as
the first, but adds a new option: TELEPORT. Save if you like, then
select this to be transported to a new (and very wet) area to explore.
Each monolith here leads to a new area, but you must activate each one
by whacking the boss in the previous area (hence the storyline just
got a whole lot more linear). The areas are very similar in design
to the one you just completed, i.e. area-with-monolith, additional
areas, boss area, five or so creature types wandering around, so if
subsequent descriptions sound rather brief it's due to repetition.
NOTE: Behind the five monoliths in this room is a hole in the wall.
Do NOT go in there. Inside is something you don't want any of.
Not yet, anyway. Trust me on this one. Side quest.
//////////
5.0 Second Stage - The Sea
Teleporting leaves you in a wide-open area containing a monolith
(which you can use to teleport back to the worm's room, if you like)
and some waist-deep water. A little exploration will demonstrate that
the water gets a lot deeper than that.
5.1 Sloping cavern
Once you explore past the waist-deep water you start in, you'll find a
deep sea cavern with lots of the usual rocks, coral and obstacles.
One wall has a deep dark inviting hole in it, which isn't recommended
quite yet for exploration. In this area, you'll find:
* small fish (easily killed, but hard to catch up to)
* sea horses (not too difficult, they don't seem to attack)
* small brown manta rays (which bite hard and generally poison)
Use Lightning 1st liberally, chow down, run away if you get poisoned
(since it's easy to get blindsided in this wide-open area; keep turning
at all times) and keep building those body parts. The manta rays in
particular are stronger than anything you've faced so far, so you'll want
to stay here for a while and build attack and Defense values before
proceeding too far.
5.2 Larger sea cavern
Going through the hole will lead you to a much larger cavern, with
lots of nooks and crannies to examine. Unfortunately, there are also
a lot of enemies here, including two new ones that are dangerous:
* swordfish (electrically charged, though Lightning does hurt them)
* sharks (or big tuna, it's hard to say) (heavy bite, distance attack)
Needless to say, continuing to build up your stats is highly recommended.
If a stat is quite deficient, use the repeated-generation trick mentioned
in the Evolution section (create a high-level body part in one color,
change colors, repeat, cycling back and forth between two colors you
want to build up) for as long as your EVPs will hold out.
Be careful in this area -- it's VERY easy to get attacked from behind,
as everything's wide open, and opponents will attack in numbers quite often.
There is a pitch-black area at the very bottom of this cavern. Is there
a way to light it up? I haven't found any way yet, but... hmmm.
(NOTE: If you search around the top of the pitch-black cavern, you may
find a steep upward path leading to the usual black gateway to another
area. If you get there and hear some intense-sounding music, GET OUT.
Another side-quest boss. This is not the usual level boss, and it
will tear you to shreds if you get too close.)
Somewhere in this cavern is a cliff wall with a gap, similar to the hole
that led you into this area (a fairly straight path leading to it, not
sloped sharply). Entering that hole leads you to the next boss... and
his friends.
5.3 Second Stage Area Boss - The Big Ray
When you enter the new area and the boss music starts playing, you
may be surprised when you're attacked by some red seahorses. Don't
blow your whole wad of EPs on them, as they're just sidekicks. None are
that dangerous, but these are there to distract you from the BIG fish
that's following them, which is sort of a cross between a manta ray and
a swordfish that's been fed a lot of growth hormones. The sidekicks
also seem hardier than the average of their ilk, and have some relatively
minor pecking attacks (minor except when you let four or five of them get
close at once), which can be a pain when it comes to aiming your attacks
at the right critter. (Which would be the BIG critter, who's more
dangerous than the rest of the combined.)
Take out those you can from a distance to begin with, but once you see
the big ray approaching pump your best magic (Lightning 2nd works okay,
use better if you have it) into him hard. Don't be afraid to use High Heal
if you have it, as you'll probably need it to survive the encounter unless
you've levelled-up your stats quite a bit. As usual, his hand-to-hand
attacks are much stronger than his zaps.
(When I beat him, I had Head 12 (Lizard), Arm 7 (Insect), Body 4
(Tube Snake) and Legs 30 (Man). INT was at 182, E-Attack at 167.
371 HP, 403 EP.)
A cubbyhole in the bottom of the boss's area leads to yet another
monolith, this one in green. When you teleport using it, a short FMV
follows. Strangely, it's of a winged angel-being wasting turtles with rays
of some sort. This is not typical angel behavior, IMHO, so I'm sure
we'll be seeing more of her later.
//////////
6.0 Third Stage - The Jungle
6.1 Entrance area
This stage features some drier terrain, though some streams do
pass through it. It also features a mushroom near the monolith that
gives one of the rarer nutrients, NeuroBio (+1 per mushroom). There
is a second mushroom in the next area as well, and you can keep
walking back and forth to stock up on NeuroBio if you really want to.
In addition, there is a round yellow item at the far end of the second
area that gives +1 HardCell. Between this and the mushrooms, dedicated
players can build up enough points to start using some advanced parts.
New creatures include:
* an eel (which stays in the water)
* a fin-backed lizard with a distance spit
* a frog-like lizard with a poisonous bite
This first area isn't that large. Follow a hole in the left cavern
wall to reach...
6.2 Second jungle area
More creatures join the fun:
* a large brown reptile (rather durable, and spits at you)
* an ANNOYINGLY fast frog with a fan-neck (spits fire & tongue-lashes)
* and more fin-backed lizards.
Each area has a doorway to the boss's lair -- one is passable
easily, one is through swamp. Whichever way you get there,
you'll end up facing...
6.3 Jungle Bosses - Twin Frogs
...two really big frogs. Deal with them as you would any other
bosses, i.e. hit hard with magic and don't be afraid to heal
yourself when needed. Concentrate on one frog until it's dead,
then go after the other. They bite reasonably hard, but that's
about it.
This unlocks yet another monolith (located behind the big mountain
at the far end of this area).
Once you teleport using this monolith, you get yet another FMV.
This time the angel's whacking what look like ostriches. She blows
away a handful of them, then vanishes. Again, no rhyme or reason is
provided for this yet.
//////////
7.0 Fourth Stage - Badlands Area
This area is rather mountainous, with some plants and trees
sticking up here and there. Not particularly inviting terrain.
The gameplay is about the same as always... wander, wander,
whack whack shoot zap, collect corpses, find the exit to the
next area. This time there are three areas before you reach
the boss, instead of two.
7.1 Mountain Area 1
The hills make it difficult to see where enemies are coming from
sometimes. No matter, you should be armed to the teeth by now.
* Vultures (more like mini-pterodactyls, really)
* Lizards
If you have Float movement, you can make your way over to an
island with a semi-hidden exit. This will take you directly
to Mountain Area 3.
7.2 Mountain Area 2
More of the same, but with some new critters:
* Cobras (toxin bite, freezes both HPs and EPs for a while)
* Giant Tortoises (I haven't gotten close to one of these yet, but
they're rather durable.) These are the turtles you saw the
angel-being frying in a previous FMV.
7.3 Mountain Area 3
And still more. The boss is in one of the entrances in the
tall spire in the middle; the other entrance takes you back to
Mountain Area 2.
Now add:
* Energy Lizards (these throw an arc of energy your way)
7.4 Area Boss - Fire-Breathing Dino
As you walk through this door, you'll hear a rumbling sound that's
not very promising. A rather large dinosaur comes charging over,
packing fire breath that does a lot of damage. (To say nothing of
his bite, naturally.) Take him out as you would any other boss,
again... I had Force Shield by this time, so I tried it out and it
deflected enough damage to seem helpful. A couple of Lightning Maxes
and a hand-to-hand parting shot knocked him over.
Next FMV - You guessed it, the angel's gettin' busy again. This
time the prey appear to be armor-covered tigers.
//////////
8.0 Fifth Stage - The Valley
This looks like a quiet mountain valley -- lots of trees and grass,
streams, the kind of place you'd want to go for a picnic. Except for
the way the local birds keep dive-bombing you, that is.
8.1 First Area
Lots of tall cliffs with narrow paths between them, with grassy areas
between them. The exit is tucked into one of those narrow openings.
Enemies:
* a rather generic bird
* a more mechanical-looking bird
* a long-necked bird
All of these (basically, every enemy in the game at this point) have
some sort of distance weapon. I have yet to find any particular
vulnerabilities, i.e. whether they're throwing energy or fire or
poison or something else seems all the same to you.
The birds' corpses finally start providing Hard Cell and Neuro-Bio
nutrients on a regular basis, so you can try out some of your more
exotic body parts at last.
8.2 Second Area
Similar terrain.
More enemies:
* a very small, seemingly harmless bird
* a walking ostrich that shoots electricity (but didn't fare too
well against the angel earlier in the game)
* more of the mechanical birds
The entrance is tucked away in another narrow path, a little more
rounded than the one you just came out of.
8.3 Third Area
An undefended cave within a mountain with lava running through it.
You must have Float movement to pass (which means you need legs like
Shell Kite or Evil Wise).
8.4 Fifth Stage Area Boss - Big Mecha-Bird
You face off against an entire bird sanctuary here in a glade --
a handful of sidekick birds defending a BIG mecha-bird. The
henchmen (henchbirds) fall pretty quickly, but the big bird doesn't.
Force Shield will come in quite handy. (Its hand-to-hand attacks
don't seem that terrible, so don't be afraid to get close if you're
strong that way, saving your EPs for High/Full Heal and Force Shield.)
No FMV this time, but the last monolith opens up.
//////////
9.0 Sixth Stage - Barren Future
The landscape here is oddly barren, with a few trees and other
landmarks here or there.
9.1 Future Grassy Area
Just to annoy you, the landscape appears wide-open and available
for travel, but invisible force fields wall off this area. Oddly,
the enemies seem to have no trouble passing through these barriers.
At any rate, the exit is in one of the rocks near the green pools
of water, facing away from the monoliths.
Enemies include:
* An ape that hurls rocks
* An aardvark
* A kangaroo
* A mean-looking black yak
9.2 Future Desert Area
Lots of sand dunes, giving the natural creatures some cover. Travel
across the desert to find the gateway to a wide-open grassy area that
seems strangely deserted.
* An armored tiger (yep, yet another Angel victim come to meet you)
* A VERY hardy mantis that I only encountered once. I blasted it
a dozen times with my arm weapons, but nothing seemed to drop
it. One final Wind Max took it out, and it seemed to give a
lot of nutrients.
9.3 Deserted Valley
This area is a huge, grassy valley that seems deserted. When you exit
and return to the desert, however, you will be attacked by...
9.4 Area Bosses - Twin Golems
Two big and burly rock golems (sort of like rock-armored apes) come at
you, with a smaller ape as a sidekick. Yes, I said two. It is imperative
that you take one of them out BEFORE they both start pounding on you, as
your Force Shield can't take the strain for long. Once one is dead, the
other seems to lose some strength and winning becomes largely academic.
Once you have downed the Golems, DON'T GO BACK TO THE VALLEY YET. You
definitely want to heal first (you'll need to build your EPs back up,
though you can take your time about it).
9.4.1 Storyline turning point
When you reenter the valley at full strength, there seems to be a flag
set for the storyline depending on certain things. A spaceship will
enter, depositing the ray-blasting angel in your path, who'll you have
to fight. HOWEVER...
Under certain circumstances, a human female wearing strips of fur
(think back to any woman in any caveman movie you've ever seen) may
creep out to take a look at you before the angel arrives.
Possible triggers for this include:
* you enter this area as a "pure" creature (all four body parts you have
equipped are from the same creature)
* you have created (but are not necessarily wearing) all four Level 30
(Man) parts. (I highly suspect that this is the deciding factor.)
If the female appears, the Angel will appear and start blasting away
at her; she runs away, at which point the Angel turns its attention to
you. If the female does not appear, a voice from the spaceship will
harass you about being a genetic mutation first.
You have one chance to save the female, if she appears. If you defeat
the Angel then and there (no dying, no fleeing the room and returning),
the female will reappear later on. If you die or retreat, the female
gets whacked by the Angel and you continue as if she'd never existed.
9.5 Area Boss #2 - Neo Bionoid (Angel)
She's been whacking mutated animals left and right, and now she's
come for you. Just what you needed... and her rays are just as
painful as they looked.
Force Shield will keep you around long enough to heal and retaliate.
I recommend using your best projectile weapon (Arm-based) so that
you can save your EPs for healing and shields, as usual. Keep
blasting and she will fall eventually.
The Angel will fall and blast open a cave entrance here in the Valley.
//////////
10.0 Side Quests
10.1 Giant Butterfly
With seemingly nothing left besides the newly-opened cave,
I returned to the room with the multiple monoliths
(where you first fought the Worm) to explore the area behind it
once more. What I found there was a giant butterfly-like insect
with some MAJOR destructive powers. It doesn't move until you
get close to it, but once you get within range, it starts whipping
out multiple energy rays that can blow you away quickly.
All I can say is this: beef up your stats severely, keep Force
Shield up as much as possible, hit B the instant you are hit
(so that you can throw out either another Force Shield or a
Heal), stay outside of hand-to-hand range if possible, and
blast with a good projectile weapon (I used Evil Wise).
Even then, it's a tough fight -- and possibly not a necessary one,
though it seemed rich in nutrients once it died.
10.2 Giant Crustacean
On my second time through the game, I found yet another "secret"
boss. This one was a giant crustacean of some sort, and it killed
my new creature with one blow. This one was found by investigating
the pitch-black crater in the Sea level; by circling around its edge,
I found an upward path leading to yet another water area, this one
with the intense boss-music. The crustacean levitated out of a
volcano-like structure, then bushwacked me from behind.
This monster tends to zap you with powerful Water attacks, and is
just as durable (maybe more so) than the butterfly. Even so, follow
the same approach (it's a big pile of points, so accumulate a bigger
pile and zap it to death with Evil Wise arms) and it should fall.
Make sure your Defense and Attack scores are nearly maxxed out.
//////////
11.0 The Hidden Cave
With the butterfly out of the way, return to the scene of
your duel with the Angel. A cave should have been blasted open
by the Angel's fall to earth.
Inside is... wait for it... a secret laboratory.
11.1 Plot exposition
Access the computer in this room to learn the REAL plot of
the game, along with what you are, how you got here and how the
planet got this way. There's a lot of redundancy (particularly
in the first report), but it does clear up a lot of issues.
(Press the A button to speed up the scrolling lines.)
So now you know what you are, how you got here and who
sent the Neo Bionoid that attacked you. Now what?
Well, a mysterious new monolith with a skull on it has appeared next
to the cave. Dare you investigate? Of course you will -- you've got
nothing better to do. (Though I will say that if you encountered the
human female, you really ought to switch to some low-nutrient-cost body
parts before teleporting via this monolith. Fair warning.)
11.2 Inside the laboratory
This leads to some REALLY CREEPY FMVs. By the way, for a game
that's been strictly mindless fighting up to this point,
there's sure a lot of talking going on right now, isn't there?
After the scientist is done chattering away about the future
and your lack of future, an earthquake blows open the polar
ice caps again. What happens next depends on whether you
encountered the human female in the valley right before fighting
the Neo Bionoid:
* If you did not encounter the female, or if she was killed by the
Neo Bionoid (i.e. you lost or fled in your first encounter with it),
you will follow the Creature ending path (11.2.1, ending 1).
* If you did encounter the female and defeated the Bionoid on your
first try, you will follow the Human ending path (11.2.2, ending 2).
11.2.1 Creature path (ending 1)
In this path, the scientists are rather alarmed about the earthquake
and argue amongst themselves as to what it represents. One of them
points out that the animals in the area are closing in fast, and
that the earthquake just happened to have blown away the base's
defenses... An armored tiger soon appears and starts chomping on
the scientists, the last of whom begs you to save the children in
the facility before he becomes lunch.
Once all the chatter ends, blow away the tiger in the room you're in,
then wander down the hallway in search of the children the scientist
was taking about. A herd of yaks breaks in once you find them, but
they should be easy pickings for you by now.
You then carry on a conversation with... er... well, you tell me. The
"consciousness of the planet" is my best guess. One last herd of animals
breaks in (again, no sweat.) Defeat them, and sit back for a bunch of
FMVs -- or just run away, for a different twist to the ending...
(Check the Spoilers section for more ending details.)
And now... the "Game Over" that you were specifically told in
the manual would NOT ever arrive, does. Where did THAT come from?
11.2.2 Human path (ending 2)
In this path, the scientists are even more alarmed, because the
earthquake has caused the base's nuclear reactor to become highly
unstable. The scientists panic as time grows short, one of whom is
thoroughly amusing as he pouts aloud about how he didn't get to finish
his project. The nuclear explosion that follows makes sure he'll never
get the chance.
Of course, YOU were in that room, too. So now what? The same thing
that always happens when you die -- you appear next to the first monolith
wearing Origin parts. Replace them with whatever you can, then return
to the sixth (barren future) stage.
After wandering around a bit, you may notice that the female is circling
the purple monolith. However, she won't get near you in your current
state. (If you saw someone coming at you with demon arms, the head
of a monkey and scorpion legs, you'd run for cover too.) You'll need to
equip all four Level 30 (Man) parts before she'll approach you.
Once you're a naked Ken doll, the female will decide you're okay and
come closer, then kneel down and put a loincloth on you. Know the old
saying "clothes make the man?" In this case it's accurate, because
you're now a certifiable 100% human being, and she'll follow you anywhere
now (not that you can go very far, since the Teleports on the monoliths
are now disabled.)
Speaking of disabled, you can no longer use either your ExPower abilities
_or_ any of the enhanced body parts. You can still evolve, but only to
gain statistics; even though parts look like they're being generated as
always, it's only to determine how many points you gain and to which
stats they're assigned. On the plus side, you have a stone you're
carrying around and can throw, and you can find a club and an axe lying
around if you search the grounds thoroughly. Your stats should be high
enough at this point that you can beat the local animals barehanded, but
the weapons can only help.
What do you need them for? Beating up animals (though eating them seems
pointless) and building stats, then going through the gateway to the
desert to fight a giant wooly mammoth. If your stats are jacked up high,
you can beat it senseless without fear (which is good, since you can't
heal yourself any more). Beat it, and the ending videos begin.
//////////
12.0 Appendices and tables (partial -- submissions welcome)
These tables are sketchy at best, for now. I'm filling in the gaps
as I play through the game again, but some numbers are easier to
figure out than others.
12.1 Nutrient values of non-creature edibles
The average food doesn't do a whole hell of a lot, frankly. I've
eaten just about everything I've picked up and rarely found anything
worth more than an average corpse.
About the only notable thing I've come across was the mushroom that
grows in each of the Jungle areas; it gives +1 NB and occasionally
poisons you in the process, but you can build up a reasonable NB
stockpile fairly early in by mindlessly traveling back and forth
between their growth sites. Another item in the Jungle seemed to
give me some HC nutrients once, but I haven't been able to reproduce
that yet (so I'm not sure which one it is). By the time other foods
pop up that provide HC and/or NB, the corpses start providing them
regularly, so...
Suffice it to say that if you see it, eat it. A more thorough overview
and/or table of nutrients may appear in a later version of this
walkthrough. It's quite possible that the crystals et al. have some
mysterious effect and I'm just missing it, of course...
12.2 Appendix of Creatures
Take some of these numbers with a grain of salt; there may be a (small)
range as to how many nutrients you get from each corpse. Since
you're pretty much getting all four basic nutrients from almost any
corpse, there's not too much point in being picky; kill and eat everything
if you need to stock up on them. By the time you get to the sea, if you
can kill creatures without being damaged or churning out EPs constantly
you can (slowly) build up some huge reserves.
I've also been rather vague as to the attack forms of these monsters,
mainly because they all seem to function about the same. No matter what
the visual effect is, there are hand-to-hand attacks, distance attacks
and the occasional poison or toxin mixed in. There's not much point in
saying "look out, this guy shoots electricity" if electricity does the
same damage to you as other distance attacks. If an attack does quite a
bit more damage than the average of its peers' attacks, I've tried to
represent that in the brief description, however. Poison and Toxin mean
that you have a chance of getting poisoned/toxined each time you're
hit.
The EVPs are correct, however.
POND CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sea Cucumber +10 0 0 +3 0 0 1 none
Slug +2 +1 +3 +3 0 0 1 none
Beetle +3 +6 +2 +5 0 0 1 pinch
Squid +7 +3 +4 +4 0 0 1 twirling stab
Crab +3 +3 +10 +6 0 0 2 claws (painful)
Worm (boss) +10 +10 +10 +10 0 0 10 zap, (hard!) bite
SEA CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fish +0 +5 +7 0 0 0 1 none
Seahorse +2 0 0 +7 0 0 1 peck (when provoked)
Brown Ray +3 +3 +3 +3 0 0 2 poison bite
Swordfish 0 +3 +2 +2 0 0 2 electric zap, stab
Shark 0 +7 +1 +5 0 0 3 (hard!) bite, spit
Big Ray (boss) zap, (hard!) stab
JUNGLE CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eel 1 electric bite
Frog Lizard 2 bite
Finback Lizard 3 spit, bite
Fan-necked Frog 4 tongue lash, spit
Reptile 5 bite, spit
Killer Frogs (bosses) 25/25 ?
BADLANDS CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mini-Ptero 3 bite
Lizard 4 close-range blast
Energy Lizard 5 energy blast
Giant Tortoise +3 +5 +5 +2 +2 0 6 none
Cobra Snake 7 (hard!) toxin bite, zap
Dinosaur (boss) +10 +36 +2 +30 +6 +6 50 fire breath,(hard!) bite
VALLEY CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bird 5 Energy blast
Mecha-Bird 7 Energy blast
Crane 8 Energy blast
Ostrich 10 Electric blast
Little Bird 2 none?
Huge Mecha-Bird (boss) 70 talons, blast
BARREN CREATURES WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aardvark 0 +1 +1 +8 +2 0 6 bite
Ape +25 +3 +3 +25 +2 0 10 rock throw,
Killer Yak 11 zap, head butt
Kangaroo 8 leaping kick
Armored Tiger 13 energy, claws
Mantis
Twin Golems (bosses) 80/80
Neo Bionoid (big boss) (corpse explodes) damaging rays
SIDE QUEST CREATURE WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB EVPs Attacks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Giant Butterfly MAJOR zap, toxin bite
Giant Crustacean 0 0 0 0 100+ 0 0(!) BIG water blast
12.3 (Partial) Catalog of Body Parts
12.3.1 Heads
Nutrients Required Bonus Points
LEV CREATURE WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB E-AT INT DEX EP
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Origin 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Low Fish 3 5 2 1 0 0 0 +5 +5 0
3 Desert Bone 2 6 4 2 0 0 +5 +10 +5 0
4 Sea Worm 14 15 6 5 0 0 +20 +25 +3 +5
5 Tube Snake 18 27 11 9 0 0 +10 +45 +10 +15
6 Mollusk Crawler 24 30 8 11 0 0 +25 +30 +25 +25
7 Insect 15 12 21 23 0 0 0 0 +64 0
9 Blade Crab 38 42 52 43 0 0 +35 +75 0 +30
10 High Fish 51 58 46 40 0 0 +60 +65 +45 +50
12 Lizard 48 66 65 54 0 0 +60 +85 +65 +55
13 Lizard Rex 53 65 78 67 0 0 +85 +70 +55 +70
15 Laser Horse 82 100 83 92 1 2 +70 +115 +28 +110
16 Cannon Shark 106 55 111 87 3 0 +95 0 0 +145
17 Lynx 105 118 97 91 0 0 +75 +110 +145 +85
20 Elec. Mollusk 124 130 110 116 0 18 +130 +150 +90 +185
21 Bacillus Golem 118 135 132 126 24 30 +120 +170 +60 +155
22 Bio Racer 121 142 143 134 50 48 +140 0 +110 +200
23 Monkey 150 150 150 150 0 0 +95 +190 +200 +65
25 Demon 155 190 165 165 70 70 +195 +235 +190 +230
26 Shell Kite 173 176 150 144 54 41 +190 +160 +170 +190
27 Evil Wise 169 184 178 173 50 50 +235 +200 +85 +190
28 Crystal 200 0 0 0 0 200 +250 +225 +180 +250
29 Metal 0 0 200 0 200 20 +210 +240 +240 +200
30 Man 200 200 200 200 0 0 0 +250 +250 0
12.3.2 Arms
(+ to AT = primary attack, + to secondary AT = X-button projectile attack)
Nutrients Required
LEV CREATURE WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB Effects
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Origin 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 High Fish 5 3 3 6 0 0 +14 AT
4 Sea Worm 10 8 6 9 0 0 (+2 secondary AT, no main)
5 Frog 27 24 4 11 0 0 +17 AT
7 Insect 25 32 18 29 0 0 +27 AT
11 Stab Scorpion 34 60 41 68 0 0 +62 AT
13 Blade Crab 61 84 76 80 0 0 +92 AT
15 Hammer Lobster 85 92 88 100 3 0 +117 AT
17 Shell Kite 113 100 122 98 2 2 +132 AT
19 Plant Complex 126 45 113 154 0 13 (+82 secondary AT, no main)
20 Cannon Shark 130 112 127 130 11 7 (+67 secondary AT, no main)
21 Hammer Hare 121 133 108 136 0 15 +147 AT
22 Bacillus Golem 114 138 127 142 17 23 (+87 secondary AT, no main)
24 Bio Racer 98 129 142 151 50 42 +217 AT
25 Demon 165 155 165 190 80 80 +187 AT, +202 secondary AT
27 Evil Wise 174 168 176 183 50 50 (+147 secondary AT, no main)
28 Metal 0 0 200 0 200 20 +247 AT
30 Man 200 200 200 200 0 0 +97 AT, +57 secondary AT
12.3.3 Bodies
(* = slows movement)
Nutrients Required
LEV CREATURE WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB Effects
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Origin 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Low Fish 4 2 2 0 0 0 +10 DEF, +10 HEAL, +20 HP
4 Tube Snake 10 5 4 3 0 0 +15 DEF, +20 HEAL, +25 HP
7 Frog 33 28 14 16 0 0 +20 DEF, +80 HEAL, +65 HP
8 High Fish 50 32 23 18 0 0 +45 DEF, +45 HEAL, +45 HP
9 Mollusk Crawler 56 38 19 21 0 0 +30 DEF,+130 HEAL, +85 HP
10 Stab Scorpion 44 49 24 25 0 0 +70 DEF, +35 HEAL, +70 HP
13* Bacillus Golem 76 64 68 62 0 0 +90 DEF, +90 HEAL, +105 HP
17 Plant Complex 126 45 118 158 0 0 +60 DEF,+195 HEAL, +120 HP
19 Electric Mollusk 130 121 104 112 0 8 +80 DEF,+220 HEAL, +185 HP
20 Lynx 128 127 126 115 0 0 +100 DEF,+175 HEAL, +155 HP
22 Laser Horse 142 128 136 121 14 18 +150 DEF,+105 HEAL, +205 HP
23 Monkey 140 140 140 140 0 0 +95 DEF,+160 HEAL, +230 HP
24 Giga Ork 146 151 128 131 33 28 +125 DEF, +85 HEAL, +255 HP
25 Evil Wise 182 163 146 148 50 50 +160 DEF,+190 HEAL, +215 HP
26 Demon 190 175 175 155 90 90 +210 DEF,+200 HEAL, +230 HP
27 Bio Racer 172 142 181 164 46 52 +200 DEF,+145 HEAL, +245 HP
28 Crystal 200 0 0 0 0 200 +225 DEF, +200 HP
29 Metal 0 0 200 0 200 20 +250 DEF, +240 HP
30 Man 200 200 200 200 0 0 +90 DEF,+150 HEAL, +140 HP
12.3.4 Legs
Fd = Ford Pln = Plain
Nutrients Required Swm = Swamp Slp = Slope
LEV CREATURE WA PRO CAL FIB HC NB Movement
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Origin 0 0 0 0 0 0 MOV 2; Fd
2 Low Fish 3 2 4 0 0 0 MOV 1; Fd Sea
3 Blade Crab 4 3 5 1 0 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Sea
4 High Fish 10 4 3 2 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Sea
5 Bacillus Golem 9 10 13 5 0 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Swm
7 Sea Worm 20 23 27 16 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Sea
8 Stab Scorpion 15 31 32 21 0 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Swm
10 Mollusk Crawler 32 49 52 36 0 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Sea Swm
11 Electric Mollusk 51 55 48 40 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Pln Sea
14 Hammer Lobster 86 84 95 78 1 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Slp Swm
16 Cannon Shark 104 87 116 84 2 0 MOV 1; Fd Pln Slp Swm
18 Lizard Rex 108 112 123 98 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Pln Slp Swm
19 Monkey 120 120 120 120 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Pln Slp Swm
20 Lynx 118 125 129 114 0 0 MOV 2; Fd Pln Slp
22 Giga Ork 132 144 145 123 15 7 MOV 2; Fd Pln Slp Swm
23 Shell Kite 160 152 118 106 21 24 MOV 2; All
24 Laser Horse 141 148 152 133 26 18 MOV 3; Fd Pln
25 Demon 165 165 190 155 70 70 MOV 2; All but Float
26 Bio Racer 173 177 184 172 42 56 MOV 4; Fd Pln
27 Crystal 200 0 0 0 0 200 MOV 2; All but Float
28 Metal 0 0 200 0 200 20 MOV 3; All but Float
29 Evil Wise 193 196 230 191 60 60 MOV 3; All
30 Man 200 200 200 200 0 0 MOV 2; All but Float
12.4 Frequently Asked Questions
A few answers, to head off what will likely be the most common questions:
Q1: I'm a newborn protist. How do I get out of the Pond?
A1: You don't, as a protist. You're stuck in shallow water until you
grow bigger. Hint: KEEP EATING until you've grown three times.
Q2: I keep getting killed by the crabs... HELP ME!
A2: If ever there was a common cry for help in this game, it's this.
First off, if you're a protist, just KEEP EATING. Ignore the crabs,
take laps of your area as quickly as you can, dodge ANYTHING that's
moving and eat anything that's not and isn't part of the terrain.
Big globs of floating algae, seaweed, anything you can get to. There
will be food you can't reach yet (just out of the water, or in deeper
water), but as long as you KEEP MOVING the crabs won't catch up to
you unless you blunder into one or run into a dead end with one nearby.
Trust me, you can grow to be an Origin creature in about two minutes
once you know what's edible and will help you grow.
Now, when you're an Origin, you're still quite vulnerable. So here's
how it works -- KEEP TAKING LAPS. Find the Sea Cucumbers and Slugs
(little brown globs that don't move much) along the floor of the pond.
Run up, whack them, eat the corpse, and KEEP MOVING. Do it twice.
You can even get killed in the meantime without penalty, as you don't
lose EVPs when you die.
Whenever you've got two or more EVPs, GO TO THE MONOLITH. Select
the Evolution command, and pick the color you selected for Defense.
Put some random dots, a design, or whatever your heart desires on the
grid in the Defense color, then click Send. (Do it all in that one color,
though; that'll make all the stat bonuses go to the one stat.) It doesn't
matter much what you get, as this early in the process it's probably
_something_ you can equip. Either way, you gained Defense points by
doing it. Go back out there, kill two more creatures, return and do
it again, modifying your design in some way to see what comes up this
time, and so on until you have _something_ you can use. If you keep
getting the same part over and over again, modify your design
dramatically just to get something different.
(It doesn't really matter much what parts you get, as long as they're
of a low enough level for you to equip; almost anything will help.)
By building up Defense, you should be able to survive one crab hit
before long. Now, you need an attack form, and that's going to depend
on what kind of parts you can equip.
If you're lucky enough to get Arms that can fire projectiles, there's
your attack form; build up your Attack rating by generating more parts
and using that color instead. (Pick a design that's returned the highest
level part so far, no matter what the part is. Put it in your Attack
color and click Send. Now add or subtract one or two dots and do it
again; you'll likely get an identical part and get that high stat boost
again. Repeat as needed.)
If you get Arms that add to your hand-to-hand rating, focus on Attack
there as well. You may need more Defense if you go that route, since
you're more likely to take damage fighting up close.
If you get a Head that increases your Intelligence, E-Attack and EPs,
build up those stats instead of Attack and start blasting crabs with
Fire 1st. It may take two hits to kill one, but EPs recharge quickly
at this point. Just keep your distance from creatures and pepper them
with firebolts until you have a ton of EVPs available.
If you get a Body that builds your Defense and/or Heal, that's that much
less time you have to spend right now building those up. Modify your
designs and go for something else.
Legs don't help that much, though you'll at least want legs that either
(a) get you up onto land or (b) let you explore the deeper water. This
extra mobility makes staying at a distance from beetles and crabs so
much easier...
You'll now have one good attack form and a much-improved HP and Defense
rating. This should make you more than capable of taking crabs out
one at a time. Once you can do that, you're the deadliest creature
in the pond, and should have no trouble racking up enough EVPs to
build your stats even higher, making the crabs effortless kills for you.
Ten minutes. That's all. It's REALLY not that hard once you
start generating parts at every opportunity, and make sure that you
always draw in one single color to maximize the statistic gains there.
Still having problems (here, or anywhere else)? Just keep building
up your stats. A few dozen points here or there can make a world of
difference. When in doubt, just keep evolving.
By the way, if you need to stop and heal, remember that the crabs make
noise. If you're hurt and standing still and you hear noise, there's a
crab coming for you, so RUN! (Beetles are pretty quiet, though.)
Q3: What design do I use to get Part X?
A3: Oh, I could be here all day trying to answer this, but it won't do much
good.
What parts you obtain for specific designs are subject to all sorts of
variables, and your creature's maturity level (i.e. how much it costs to
evolve, how strong it is already, etc.) seems to play a significant role.
The same design may create different parts at different points in your
creature's development.
If you keep generating the same part (or type of part), vary your designs.
If you're trying dots in one place, try big blobs somewhere else. Try
circles or squares or lines in a way you haven't before. Draw your
favorite national flag. You can't go wrong experimenting, and as little
effort as it takes to generate EVPs, there's no reason NOT to play around.
If you have a specific part and want the same type at a lower or higher
level, don't alter your design too much; you're on the right track. Add
dots or lines, connect the dots, remove a couple of dots, and see what
happens. The odds are good you'll get something similar.
Q4: Why are my nutrients dropping to zero, even though I'm eating corpses for
everything I kill?
A4: Remember that the healing process uses up nutrients, even if you're just
standing around doing nothing while it happens. This ALSO applies to
regenerating EPs, so if you're running around zapping everything with
Lightning, your EPs will be in a constant state of recharge and your
nutrients will suffer. Beating on creatures hand-to-hand doesn't cost
anything, as long as you're not taking damage in the process.
Q5: What does (Food X, or Crystal Y) do?
A5: Beats me. They don't seem to affect much of anything -- they may give
some nutrients, but that's about it. Other than nutrients, I don't think
there's anything you can eat that'll serve as a "powerup" of any sort.
Some foods may poison you, though they seem to do it randomly.
Q6: How can I beat (Boss X)?
A6: The bosses are the only monsters in the game you really need to worry
about, if you're building your stats (offense AND defense) properly.
And even then, they're not that dangerous.
If a boss has sidekicks, kill them first if the boss is still out of
range. If the boss closes in, kill the boss first (it's the most deadly
by far), but make sure you're aiming at the right creature before you
start burning major EPs on ExPowers.
If a boss comes in pairs (the Frogs or Golems), KILL ONE QUICKLY by
throwing everything you have at it. One at a time, you can beat anything.
Two at a time, you'll be attacked constantly with little chance to heal.
High-level bosses will require Force Shield for easier living. Keep
building your Intelligence until it becomes available, and your E-Attack
for more EPs with which to cast it. Rely more on standard attacks than
ExPowers for offense, so that you can heal and shield yourself with your
EPs instead.
Q7: What's in that pitch-black area in the Sea?
A7: Nothing, as far as I can tell. There's a side-quest boss NEAR there,
through an exit that's up a steep path near the top of the black
crater...
Q8: What are the best parts?
A8: I haven't found all of them yet, so I can't guess at the ones I haven't
generated.
The Man parts (Level 30) aren't THAT hard to generate (in my experience,
anyway) and have the advantage that they don't require any HardCell or
NeuroBio nutrients to create -- thus, you'll be able to use them much
earlier than most other "advanced" parts.
If you have the HC and NB to burn, the Metal or Crystal Heads, the Evil
Wise Arms (powerful distance weapon w/no EPs used), the Demon Body
(high requirements but major bonuses) and the Evil Wise Legs (high speed
and all-terrain movement) are my current favorites.
Q9: Does the ending vary any if you're 100% human (i.e. you have all four
Man parts equipped)?
A9: Yes. See the Ending sections for details on the ending branches.
Q10: How many hit points does Monster X have?
A10: Buy me a Game Shark and I'll try and find out.
If you have questions that this walkthrough doesn't answer, email me
(vsp@unix3.netaxs.com) and I'll try and figure them out.
//////////
13.0 Spoilers
13.1 Storyline spoilers
So you're wondering what this game is all about...
Through the majority of the game, there is precisely zero contact
with human beings. It's all you, mutating animal on the move,
whacking other animals and building your strength. At intervals,
however, you view FMV clips of a winged angel frying animals with
energy rays, then disappearing. You don't get much of a clue as
to what she's up to or who put her there until you've beaten the
last of the six area bosses, at which point a spaceship flies in,
challenges you and drops the angel in your path. If you get past
her (Force Shield is your friend), you get access to a room that
fills in almost all the storyline gaps.
It seems that the world as we know it ended in 2006, when an
earthquake opened up Antarctic ice caps and released a red cloud
containing a killer virus. The governments of the world figured
that this was some country's hidden biological weapon stockpile
and opened fire with nuclear weapons, but found out they were
wrong only after both the nukes and the virus had decimated the
Earth's population.
The survivors formed a central government for the world, then
voted as to what would be the proper next step to take. Two
projects were considered, with about a 70/30 split in support.
The larger group supported the Earth Rescue Project, which
reasoned that it would take 500+ years for Earth to return to
its natural state (flushing out all the radiation, pollution,
viruses, etc.), so they packed the remains of humanity onto
a spaceship and took off for outer space.
A robotic vessel remained, which controlled a guardian angel (so to
speak) called a Neo Bionoid which would go forth and exterminate all
signs of man's tampering with nature (genetically altered animals,
mutations, animals appearing in unnatural environments, etc.)
Hence the video clips of the Bionoid frying birds in the reptile
habitat, mammals in the avian habitat, etc., since they didn't belong
there.
The smaller group's alternative was known as the Seventh Cross
project. This group reasoned that waiting hundreds of years for
Earth to return to a suitable environment wasn't a viable option,
when they could genetically engineer humans to survive in the
environment as-is. In secret, some scientists stayed behind and
set this plan into motion by releasing proto-human organisms with
specially modified DNA into the world -- such as a certain protist
you've come to know and love.
The organisms were designed to be able to evolve and mutate
extremely rapidly so as to be able to adapt to any environment and
conquer any opposition. Six monoliths were placed into the habitats
that the Earth Rescue Project had set up; each of these not only enabled
the evolutionary process for the organisms, but also captured snapshots
and samples of the organisms' DNA for computer analysis. This data
from the human-but-also-much-more organisms would then be applied to
"pure" humans, so as to grant them the ability to adapt to any environment
and return to Earthly life. In the meantime, the organism (you) is
essentially using the Earth Rescue Project's sanctuaries as hunting
grounds.
This is what you are told after accessing the "skull" monolith,
waking up from your teleportation dangling in the secret laboratory
and meeting scientists who greet you with "Hi, we're your creators."
By defeating the Neo Bionoid, you've essentially guaranteed the
success of the Seventh Cross Project, as that was the enforcer of
the Earth Rescue Project's efforts to eliminate all non-native life.
You'd (sort of) been doing its job all along, whacking mutated
animals left and right, but since you're now pretty much the most
perfect example of a dangerous mutation on the loose, it came after
you (and failed, if you've reached this point in the story).
Of course, it's not all pleasantries with your creators, as you
overhear them discussing what to do with "that guinea pig" (you) now
that the research has been completed. Phrases like "terminate it"
and "too dangerous to live" come up as they discuss your fate.
Since you're hanging there in suspended animation, however, there's
not too much you can do to save yourself.
13.1.1 Ending set 1 (Creature ending)
About that time, however, another earthquake rocks the planet, and
MORE of the mysterious red gas (the virus that started it all) is
ejected into the atmosphere. FMV closeups show various remaining
mutant animals inhaling the gas and preparing to go postal...
In a charmingly silly bit of plot exposition, one of the scientists
wonders aloud why the virus has reemerged now. "Are you suggesting that
the planet itself has a consciousness..." Yeah, that's the logical
leap _I'd_ have made... except that it turns out to be CORRECT later
on. The reprogrammed animals come bursting into the lab (conveniently,
the earthquake just happened to break the defense mechanisms the
lab had against them) and tear the scientists to shreds. Right
before an armored tiger gets the last one, he sets you free and begs
you to rescue the children elsewhere in the complex. Oh, so now
you're humanity's defender, right after the first humans you've ever
met were talking about killing you off?
Dutifully, you travel down the hallway and find the room the kids
are hiding in. Some yaks break in, you wipe them out, and the screen
turns black; you are now apparently having a CONVERSATION (albeit a
one-sided one, as you don't speak) with the consciousness of the
Earth. It discusses why it doesn't consider you the correct future
path for the world's inhabitants, it asks you why you're defending
the humans, and then shuts up as another pack of animals comes in.
Should you defeat the second group of animals (which should be a snap
if you took out the Bionoid), the voice says "I know that the feelings
in your heart will reach them," roughly paraphrased, and you COLLAPSE.
You see the children surround your misshapen figure, and... the credits
roll. By your actions, you've decided that the human race should remain
the lead species of Earth, and thus doomed yourself. Which is noble,
I suppose...
Once the credits finish, you then see your body hanging up on the wall
in a church, as the children you saved pray to you. Your name is
written on the bottom of the shrine... how they knew what it was, since
YOU DON'T TALK, is open to debate. The words "The End" then appear.
"The End?" What happened to that bit about "there is no point at which
the game is over" in the manual? Apparently, they were yanking our
chains with that comment (pity, as it's one of the few sentences in
the manual that makes much sense).
The alternate path here is if you simply ignore the animals in the lab and
exit. The animals rejoice that the Earth has now chosen THEM to be the
leaders, and gleefully chow down on the humans... (More on this ending
once I actually see it myself. Thanks to Weasel Despair for details on
this ending's existence.)
13.1.2 Ending set 2 (Human ending)
If you encountered the human female in the big valley before fighting the
Neo Bionoid, AND defeated the Bionoid without running away or dying, you
will end up meeting her again. (If you died or fled, she died, and you go
down the Creature path to the endings.) Instead of insulting you about your
disruption of the revival process, the voice from the spaceship will warn
you about the plans of the Seventh Cross scientists (though it'll still set
the Bionoid on you first), and the scientists' lair will explode in a nuclear
fireball instead of being attacked by animals.
Once you return to the barren future and join up with the female, you
become human yourself. After finding some tools and beating the
mammoth, the female decides "Hey, he's cool" and falls for you even
more. A video follows of mammoth bits roasting over an open fire, as
your new girlfriend curls up against your arm. Awwwwwww. Credits roll.
Now comes the REALLY funny part. Once the credits are over, you see
a panoramic shot of a village, then the spaceship arrives again. Actors
run about in panic -- and I mean actors, because this is LIVE-ACTION VIDEO
starring real people. This is too funny -- you really have to see it.
One villager summons the town elder, which is presumably you since
you've got a peculiar "Hmmmm... I've seen THAT before" look in your eyes.
You are left with a picture of the Earth, with the Albert Einstein quote
about World War IV being fought with sticks and stones over top of it.
And "The End" in the corner.
13.2 Small hints regarding evolution/body part generation
I got the best parts (Level 30 - Man) for the most part by putting
only ONE DOT on the grid, right at the center of the 10x10 grid.
This was after I'd been playing for a while, so don't expect Lvl 30
parts right off the bat, but the results were pretty dramatic
in later stages. Of the four squares in the center of the grid,
only the lower-left one didn't seem to help much; putting dots in one
or two of the others seemed to kick out 30s on a regular basis.
In general, you don't have to be that creative once you're a little
way into the game. Create a display with a dot or two in the
middle and a couple of random dots strewn around, send it, then add
one dot somewhere and resubmit. And repeat. Your stats should go
skyrocketing in short order. Alternatively, try the same display
in all six colors (one at a time, six submissions) to boost all your
stats, then modify it slightly and keep changing colors until you're
out of EVPs.
Once you've been playing for a while, the numbers seem to start
climbing no matter what you draw... and sometimes it doesn't take long
at all.
13.3 Unanswered questions (or: help me out here)
First off, there are still some gaps in the tables. (A lot of gaps.)
I will be working to try and get all 30 of each body part type, and
put in more on food effects, nutrients from corpses, etc.
Do the colors you select for your attributes in the beginning have any
practical effect at all?
I find it hard to believe that there were side-quest bosses in the
first two levels, but none thereafter. Anyone else found more?
13.4 Closing thoughts
This game is not NEARLY as hard as many have made it out to be. The
sticking point is figuring out the early going, working out what's
edible, what to avoid and how to mutate your body into something useful.
Once you get a rudimentary set of body parts together that can kill off
the crabs (and survive occasional hits from them), all you have to do
is boost your Intelligence up to where your ExPower abilities start
multiplying and you're set for the rest of the game.
The enemies in each area are very generic, and spending a little time
levelling-up your stats (e.g. killing a bunch of them to build EVPs, then
using those to create body parts with high levels that'll send your
stats skyrocketing) will make virtually any opponent in the game (bosses
or not) easy to beat. It only takes two EVPs at first (that's two Sea
Cucumbers or Slugs, which have no defenses) to increase your stats, and
since you know how to increase the specific stats you need, even your
"failures" (making parts you already have or can't use) make you more
dangerous and less vulnerable to the crabs. Build up Defense and Attack
and you may not even NEED new body parts to start crab-hunting, and
whatever useful parts you generate simply add icing to the cake.
Getting a set of legs in the beginning that'll get you out of the pond
may be frustrating (you're dabbling at random, so getting 4,586 Legs
and Heads and Bodies before you get useful Arms is quite possible),
but evolution is so cheap in the early going that you can have a grand
old time whacking crabs until you get what you need. (You don't need
legs capable of land to reach the Worm boss or the next level -- just
something capable of Sea movement. The early game is a SNAP once you
know how to get new body parts and learn the terrain; dying doesn't
penalize you until you've started using mutations, you'll gain enough
nutrients from corpses to easily restore early mutations if the crabs
do get you, and every part you generate increases whatever stats you
desire the most. It's not a case of extreme difficulty, just of
obscurity; a little understanding reduces the game to an exercise in
slashing through opponents.
When you've got a reasonable part-kit constructed, the main danger is
in getting bored through the repetition factor. You will spend lots
of time whacking the same animals over and over while exploring,
building up nutrients, healing and/or just building EVPs so you can
evolve yourself some more. Generating a level 25+ body part over and
over in various colors makes building stats a piece of cake (more
busywork than anything else), and the bosses are simply big monsters
that hit harder; no brainpower is required, other than some intelligent
use of your ExPower abilities for later ones. The Giant Butterfly is
quite dangerous, but as far as I know it's an optional enemy.
Is it worth playing all the way through this game? I think so, even
though all the endings seem extremely tacked-on. The fun is in playing
around with your monster's components and trying to get all the parts,
and that's quite a task in itself.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. If you find anything
interesting that I haven't covered so far (or have better explanations
for body part generation algorithms), mail me.
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Jeff Coleburn vsp@unix3.netaxs.com your message here, low rates
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